The Hybrid Face Of Biopharma

By Matthew Pillar, Editor, Bioprocess Online

As the business of biotech goes, a trend among startups is the blurring of the line between makers of biopharmaceutical assets and those of therapeutic development platforms. We’re increasingly conversing with hybrids that are no less one than the other. There are the academics conceiving an exotic source of cell culture who, to demonstrate their invention, develop a viable therapeutic asset that stands on its own merit. There are the AI-enabled therapeutic developers whose computational success spawns a marketable drug discovery platform. And, in the case of Gain Therapeutics, there’s the developer of a supercomputer-powered target discovery engine that yielded a whopping nine candidates — across four distinct therapeutic areas — along the way.